


salt the earth, fill the mountains

by MMagpieMcCorkle



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Body Horror, But They Do Suffer, Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Disability, Gen, Horror, Introspection, Near Death Experiences, Sister-Sister Relationship, Supernatural Elements, twin telepathy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 05:03:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16319651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MMagpieMcCorkle/pseuds/MMagpieMcCorkle
Summary: Beth survives the fall. Hannah and Beth are found alive within three days. The battering on the way down takes it's toll, of course.But no-one can guess what they saw.





	salt the earth, fill the mountains

**Author's Note:**

> there might be more of this? i just wanted to focus on cannibalism, cannibalism-thoughts and the twins' relationship :'/
> 
> maybe female friendship at some point too... we'll see

Hannah pushes herself more than she should. Yes, she's recovering, regaining the use of her legs (and Beth tries not to let the envy show; it might be never, might be later, but it bubbles like an ugly brew, latched like a dead knot at the topmost bone of her sternum), but she's not letting herself rest like she should.

Like _normal_ people should.

Oof, that's too close to the bone. To the skin.

"Don't fall," Beth says glibly, wishing she'd said, _**Stop moving backwards!**_ , on that night. Maybe then they wouldn't've come face-to-face, multiple times, with that creature of bone. Not have the image of it grinning at them, all-knowing human-flesh-eating fuck that it is (was? is that worse?), and it's grin promising them the worst end they couldn't bare to imagine. Which now permeates her waking thoughts, her dreaming thoughts, her conscious, subconscious, and perhaps even her unconscious mind. Fuck knows.

It could've killed them. It didn't. Why?

Looking up at Hannah going fucking ham at the climbing wall, repeatedly, up-down-up-down-up-down, spider-drop, spider-fast, Beth doesn't want to guess, but she does. Besides, it's difficult to forget how Hannah had turned to her in that long, long night (it was two?three? nights!), pale as a hungry corpse, like the bone creature (no flesh, just red rot like body rust and aged being), and grew teeth, flesh-hungry, legs moving of their own free will (or so it seemed - shadows were other things, and echoes were her family's voices, all on the rescue), and crawled to Beth. Hungry, hungry, _hungry_. And now never full.

The bite is at least just a bite, not a gaping, gouged hole in Beth's arm. And Hannah was beyond horrified, beyond hysterical after the deep pang had apparently passed, had wept and cried and screamed with pure, abject horror as they were air-lifted out, fighting against sedation (and had fought _hard_ , harder than most people, harder than people bigger than her ever could) to try to comfort her baby sister. **_Hannah, we're twins, for fucksake_** , Beth had wanted to say, but she'd let the sedation take her, and drown her, and drown out the longest night.

She thinks about their friends. If they'll all still hang out together, or if they'll drift before college is even so much of a serious threat (and here, Beth thought of it as at least some stepping stone of relief - home has always been good, has always been loving, but God, lately... even before the prank, Dad was and is clumsy, and Mom was and is fretful, but oh-so quietly it's going to drive her fucking scream-her-soul-out crazy). They'd at least apologised, faces drawn up in shock like bystanding witnesses at a seven-car-and-semi-truck pile-up. It almost made Beth laugh like she'd been injected with the funny gas, the looks on their faces. Except Josh. Silent, blank, smothering brotherly rage, no doubt. _Oh man, don't do something fuck-ass stupid._

Then again, she'd hoped Hannah wouldn't do something stupid. And where'd they all end up?

Aside from the rapid recovery, and spider-like speed, Hannah's gotten bold. Had taken one look at Michael, everyone's second visit, glanced at Emily. "Keep him." Beth likes to think that Hannah has regret over fawning over someone who was already in a relationship, but she'll never try to confirm it by asking. More than likely, Hannah is bitter.

Funny thing: nobody in their family seems to be direct. If Beth is ever a mother in the future, she likes to think she'd be open enough (not too little, not too quiet, but not too much, not too loud, either - _balance, bro_ ) with her kids that they don't ever feels the need to hide, or feel ashamed. (God, does Josh feel ashamed?)

Hannah decides she's finished, finally, and unclasps herself from the wall-climbing gear. At least she doesn't look supernaturally-calm; she's sweaty and a little rosy-cheeked, under that paled skin. "Hey, I didn't fall," Hannah says, smile like before. Towel to face and neck and that's enough for now apparently. "Wanna get something to eat? I'm starving." Hannah's always starving.

"Yeah, my appointment's not until five anyway."

"That's late."

"Yeah." No, she's not going to elaborate; she's exhausted by her thoughts. By the mountain. She wants to plead with Dad to just give it back to the people who it really belongs to, but she'll just look traumatised by something imagined, not by something real.

(Why doesn't it leave the mountain? Can it? Has it?)

"It won't," Hannah says, but Beth doesn't see her mouth move.

(Late at night, early in the morning, sometime in the afternoon - Beth can feel Hannah's hunger, too.)

"Thank fuck I guess." Beth's mouth doesn't move. She adds a quip as she rolls her wheelchair. "I'm becoming Buff-Arms Beth." It makes Hannah laugh, like she used to laugh before. At least that's not changed.


End file.
